RAMBLINGS - The Hong Kong Brother

It's about the kid Ralphie who wants the Red Ryder BB gun for Christmas, remember?

That movie just KILLS me, there are so many incredible scenes. Like where the one kid licks the frozen pole and his tongue sticks; and then when Ralphie's dad wins the "major prize" ("Fra-GEE-lay! Must be Italian!!"). And at the end they go for Christmas dinner at the Chinese restaurant, and the waiters try to serenade them with carols: "Deck the harr wid boughs of hoe-ree, fa ra ra ra ra, ra ra, ra ra!" [Listen]

It's a modern American classic, definitely in my Top 5 All-Time Favorite Movies.

One of the best scenes in that movie is where Ralphie gets his Little Orphan Annie Secret Decoder Ring in the mail. Finally he's able to decode Annie's secret messages! Remember the tension as he locks himself in the bathroom, and rushes to decode the message? He can't imagine what important message Annie is sending him -- a message so important that it must be sent in code!

He furiously works to unravel the mystery, the drama building as each letter is deciphered. "B!" comes the first one, "Okay, B! What's next?!?" -- and on it goes, letter by letter -- he almost can't stand it!!

Except, when he finally decodes the message, it just says, "Be sure to drink your Ovaltine."

Well, I tell you all that because I've seriously thought about that movie -- and that scene in particular -- a LOT in the months since I've been here in Hong Kong, and it's mostly because of one thing:

Tin Shui Wai is the community I live in here in Hong Kong. It was a veritable wasteland 15 years ago, lots of swamps and not much else, as I understand it. Then the government decided this looked like a place where 250,000 people ought to be squeezed in on top of one another, so here we have it.

When I was preparing to move here, I was on the internet all the time trying to find out more about this place, this so-called "Tin Shui Wai" -- it wasn't on ANY maps anywhere on the Net, not that I could find (I've since found a few places where you can find it, but back then I found NOTHING). And it just made it seem more weird to be moving all the way over here and I didn't even know where "here" was...

But one thing I did find on the Net was a web page about Tin Shui Wai Park. It seemed a magical place, this park. They had everything, if the website could be trusted -- places for fountains, places for skateboarding, playgrounds, benches for relaxing, a place for croquet ("gate ball" they called it -- how exotic!!), places for your morning Tai Chi as well as other "exercise" stations... They listed an amphitheater, seven tennis courts, two "synthetic surface basketball-cum-volleyball" courts, and the list went on and on... (Wow, why don't we have parks like this in the States?!?)

But above all else, the feature of Tin Shui Wai Park that sparkled and enticed the most was the presence of water bicycles.

Ah, yes! Water bicycles! The very name conjures a life of luxury and frolicking good times, dreams of hot summer days made cool and refreshing by a short trip around the lake on your water bicycle ("Gretchen, dear, pour me another drink while I do a lap on my water bike!").

But it wasn't just some veiled whisper of great things to be expected, not just the shadow of things hoped for -- NO!! For on this website they had PHOTOGRAPHS. You see, these water bikes weren't some designer's notion that would never get past the drawing board -- they actually existed, and people were right NOW (I was certain) refreshing themselves, and, well, doing all the fun and decadent things one must certainly do on a "water bicycle." Can't you see how one's curiosity might be raised by such a prospect?!?

water bikes of tin shui wai
Can't you just TELL how much these people are
enjoying their water bike experience? Don't they seem to
somehow be more carefree than we are?!?

Alright, so imagine this scene:
It was my first night in Hong Kong -- the first night of my new life -- I was so full of hope and intoxicated by the dreamy optimism that the end of a 14-hour flight can sometimes give you, that feeling when you're back on solid ground and you get through Customs and can at last relax. I was HERE, finally, and all that praying and thinking and saying goodbye was over, now it was time to get things started.

So, I had only been in Hong Kong for like 5 hours, maybe not even that long. We had gone to dinner and it was still early, and since I was trying to stay up (to adjust my body clock as soon as possible), I agreed when they offered to take me on a short "tour" of the immediate area around my hotel -- an area which included the outer edge of Tin Shui Wai Park.

It struck me as peculiar (even then) that they warned me as we approached the park entrance, "Now, Grenn," (everyone here calls me Grenn)... "Now, Grenn, at night, the law and order of the park, well, it's not so much."

It was somehow so "cute" to hear it put that way ("the law and order is not so much") that I didn't immediately register the ominous undertones (or should I say "overtones"?) of such a statement. I believed them, YES, and I resolved to NOT go into the park at night alone (I still will not do so, by the way -- "just in case"). So, yeah, I got the message loud and clear: "Park not safe in dark, you no go at night!"

BUT, standing there with my new friends, I didn't really make a connection between their warning and the possibility that my high expectations about that park might not exactly be met...

I was wandering about, getting my bearings, when I first stumbled upon the lake which sits in the middle of the park. Chinese parks always make the lake a little hard to find, they call it "hiding the sea"... it makes every turn in a Chinese garden or park a real surprise, because you don't know what's around the corner (that's the idea, anyway).

Well, trust me, "SURPRISE!" was what I got when I first saw those so-called "water bikes"...

To say that they were in a state of disrepair is to suggest that they could somehow actually be repaired, which they obviously could NOT be!! I actually felt sick to my stomach to see about 6 of these sad-sack boats all tied together in the middle of the water. ALL of them were a mess of chipped and faded paint jobs, covered in dirt and grime and rust, and at least TWO of them had sunk and were threatening to pull the others (to which they were tied) down with them! These things hadn't seen any "frolicking good times" for a long, long time. Talk about a disappointment...

And do you see the photo above, the close-up with the alleged "water bikes" in it? Notice how the water is so green? Somehow I thought this suggested the "richness" of the water, like when you see that crystal clear blue of the water in the south Pacific, and it's so vivid it just makes you feel CLEAN or something just looking at it. I thought the green of the water must be like that in the lake -- green and vibrant and refreshing. But no. Well, it was GREEN -- but it was from all the crappy algae and stuff that was growing in it. You ask about fish? Oh, I'm sure there were fish in that lake, but they weren't the nice fish you like to think about, like those big Japanese goldfish (whatever they are) that people like to throw bread crumbs to. No, I could only assume they were those ugly buck-tooth monsters that you see in National Geographic specials about the darkest ocean depths -- you know, bottom-feeders that have 3 eyes or something, and one big sucker for a mouth, with one glow-in-the-dark nostril where they sniff out their hapless prey (like maybe a kid who gets thrown in the water when their crappy water bike sinks).

Clearly my first encounter with the so-called "water bikes" was not unlike Ralphie's experience when he decoded that "crummy commercial" from Little Orphan Annie... I'm telling you, every time I've thought of those stupid boats, I've thought of Ralphie, sitting there in the bathroom in disbelief... Seeing the "reality" of those water bikes made me feel disappointed, and cheated, and not a little bit upset with myself for being so easily taken in by some cheesy promotional photos.

But somehow this seemed DIFFERENT, and I think it was the photos on that website that won me over. I think I saw those images, and in the void of real information about this place, I allowed myself to fall for the Gatsby-esque fantasy that the words "water bicycle" suggested to my imaginative mind.

So seeing the "truth" -- that it was all really just a crappy "nothing" -- really stung, somehow. And what's weird is that in the months since, I think my mind transformed that little lake into a large, black, stinking cesspool, surrounded by flies and tar... Sometimes I would think of big smelly bubbles coming up through the sludge -- gasses emitting from the very bowels of the hell-hole! I imagined that lake to be a visage of death and horror, devoid of life and goodness... and with those stupid water bikes, half-sunk, covered in moss and rust, sticking up in the middle of the whole dreary scene...

(Okay, I didn't actually think all THAT, but still, I felt pretty sour on the whole thing)...

I've only been back to that lake ONCE since that day. Really, it's true. I haven't tried to purposely avoid it or anything, but the lake is not on any of my normal routes and because of the design of the park it's actually kind of a pain to get to. But a few days ago I just happened to be in a weird situation where I was going to catch a bus at a stop I don't normally frequent, and the shortest path to get there was through the park. As I rounded the corner and realized I was going to pass by the lake, I of course started to wonder if they still had those crappy sunken boats stuck out there.

But when I got to the lake, all was calm. No sunken boats, no horrible smell from rotting dead fish, no visages of death -- just a nice, clean, quiet lake, a nice spot to sit and think. There was a couple sitting on the rocks over across the water from where I was standing, and I thought, "Yeah, I bet that's nice." And it was -- it was a nice place, and I'm sure it was pretty much the serene spot that they intended it to be when they first built it.

And standing there, seeing it as such a nice, peaceful oasis for the first time, a surprising idea sort of sprung to mind:

Listen, I love Hong Kong like crazy, and I love Tin Shui Wai. Okay, it wouldn't hurt my feelings for them to get a few more good restaurants where the staff can speaky ze Engrish, if you see what I mean, restaurants where "pig ear cartilage" and "chopped-up-yet-unnamed sea creature" aren't the featured dishes, if you catch my drift.... But STILL, I love it here in Tin Shui Wai and it feels like home in ways I never would have imagined. And I thank God for that.

But it's just like anywhere else, it can always be better -- and I think bringing back the water bikes is a step in the right direction.

Think of how it would encourage people to move here... They may know NOTHING about Tin Shui Wai, they can't even find it on a stupid map! But they keep looking, and maybe they try to learn about it from the internet -- and lo, they find our new website showcasing the fabulous features of our Park -- including The Water Bikes! I mean, they aren't sure what a water bike is, but gee, it looks like fun, right? And they don't know why in the world they are moving to Tin Shui Wai, of all places, it's truly the other side of the world to them -- but maybe they'll see the photos we can put up of all the happy people of our community enjoying themselves on the water bicycles and it will somehow help them... true, it's not much to go on, but at least it's something, right?

And, so, in all their time thinking and praying about coming here, and wondering what in the world it would be like, they can take some kind of comfort, some kind of security, in knowing that, however crazy and weird and new it would be moving here, at the very least this is the kind of place where you can go out to the park and take a spin on the lake in a water bike.

*Yo-Yo, Ma?*	*The Human Touch*
*If Me Is A Dog*	*I Walked A Mile With Pleasure*
*What's The Rush? (Part 1)*	*What Are Missionaries Like?*
*What's The Rush? (Part 2)--Rated "PG"*	*Is That Your Final Answer?*
*The NEW Yo-Yo's*	*A Rose By Any Other Name*
*Hair Like Osama*	*True Patriots of the P.R.O.C.?*
*Buying The Onion*	*Lip Van Winker*
*Eat Like You're Hungry*	*Celebrity Heads*
*Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow*	*Things I'm Thankful For*
*The Water Bicycles of Tin Shui Wai*	*My Biggest Fan*
*CD Firecrackers*	*Shaolin Kung Fu*
*Hot Pants*	*Junk E-mail*
*China's Next Great Leap*	*Internet Time*
*Don't Drink The Water*	*May I Touch Your Guts, Please?*
*A Death In Hong Kong*	*Love Kites*
*Introverts: UNITE!*	*Overdos (of cool)*
*The Wonders of English*	*Solo And The City*
*Writing 2004 -- #1: "The Third Eye"*	*The Politics Of Masking*
*Writing 2004 -- #2: "The Time Machine"*	*Tiananmen Mothers*
*Everything's Fake In China!!*	*What's Up, Doc?*
*BEN's TEAM -- 2004*